Hushed in The Under-Hyped Readathon!

Oct 15, 2013 Megan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, realistic-fiction, lgbtqa, 2014

A solid 3.5 rating.

This story follows a young guy called Archer, a deeply troubled person who's been best friends with Vivian since they were kids and "in love" with her for a long time. A truly awful event (view spoiler) prompts him to decide to kill certain people to help protect her and move on. But things happen and Archer meets s A solid 3.5 rating.

This story follows a young guy called Archer, a deeply troubled person who's been best friends with Vivian since they were kids and "in love" with her for a long time. A truly awful event (view spoiler) prompts him to decide to kill certain people to help protect her and move on. But things happen and Archer meets someone called Evan, jealousy and guilt and manipulation ensue.

So this book was pretty good. But there were things I really disliked. Such as, at times, Archer sort of seems like Mr. Friendzoned Nice Guy and feels as though because he's always been there for her and is so much nicer than all her asshole boyfriends, he is deserving of her. Other times he seemed to realise this wasn't true, but stil. Other than that I liked Archer. He was dark and disturbed but ulimately someone who maybe loved too hard, and as you read on you get more of his backstory which sheds some more light on his character.

Vivian was okay. Clearly being abusive relationships and having the family she did had an effect on her, and then of course the events that happen during this book. At first I thought her character did a complete 180, but it actually makes sense that everything would build up and she'd kind of lose it. Still, I wasn't always happy with how she was written.
And it's the same with Evan. At times he was too perfect and understaning and empathetic, always saying the right thing, but then other times I liked him a lot and thought he was very realistic.

What I liked most about this was how Archer's sexuality was handled and his and Evan's relationship. It's never stated that Archer is bisexual, but he is physically and emotionally attrated to Vivian (obviously so), and he becomes more attracted to Evan in every way as they get to know each other better. Thus it's hinted at that he's bisexual but it's never really a big deal. It's a slow build until Evan and Archer really do enter into a relationship, but that's what made it so lovely to read. Archer slowly but surely begins to trust Evan and open up to him. He starts to understand how Vivian didn't always treat him very well, and that he didn't need to be her doormat anymore. To be honest, I actually liked how most of the realtionships in this book were written.

Speaking of that, the writing itself was mostly mediocre. I feel as though York had many opportunities to write some really deep and beautiful passages, but simply didn't. That isn't to say the writing was bad because it wasn't. Some parts were really good, especially the Archer and Evan scenes and scenes between Archer and his mum, but as a whole it wasn't anything that special.

If you're a fan of books that are a bit darker and focus a lot on relationships and morally grey areas, then I do recommend this book as it's quite a good, short read. ...more

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